


Pieces, Compromise

by pridecookies



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Fluff, Fluff and Humor, LOOK AT THEM, Love Confessions, M/M, Romantic Fluff, look at these mages, my sons i love you, we love to see it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:54:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28358082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pridecookies/pseuds/pridecookies
Summary: He pressed his forehead to Anders’ and breathed in the smell of elfroot and clean linen and tea leaves. “I want you, all of you, every part, all of it,” Malcolm smiled, lips barely able to form the words with how wide it was, “And there can be no pieces, there can be no compromise.”
Relationships: Anders/Hawke (Dragon Age), Anders/Male Hawke
Comments: 5
Kudos: 12





	Pieces, Compromise

“Why are you here?” Anders asked quietly, leaning against his staff, his expression guarded. 

“What do you mean,” Malcolm responded almost off-handedly, stretching while he looked over the expanse of a forested gulley, “Do you mean my existence as a mortal marching toward death or standing in this specific place or where I am mentally and emotionally?  _ Here  _ is such a loaded word, Anders. Be specific, please.”

They were taking a break, pausing in their usual routine. It was that way now, make camp, talk over dimming firelight, keep their ears pressed to the ground as the world burned around them. Anders wasn’t sure how long it would be that way, but it had been months of vagrancy after the events of Kirkwall and it was starting to feel like they could spend more time in taverns and towns and not be as concerned about prying eyes. 

It could have been worse. Anders could be alone, he could be dead, Malcolm could be angry at him. He wasn’t, he held him high with every badge of pride he could stick to his lapel. The only fury he expressed was when Anders offered himself as penance. Sitting on a crate, hands in his lap, eyes closed and ready to step quietly into the black, and he was disrupted by a palm resting on his face. When he opened his eyes, Malcolm was kneeling in front of him with tears pouring out of his own, blue that adored amber openly. 

_ I told you, _ he had said, thumb resting on dried lips that had spoken rage into the wind not moments before, gesturing to the crate,  _ This is not the pile I put you in.  _ He wrapped his arms around the healer, holding him tightly.  _ You’re in mine. You’re what I keep. Always keep. _

There was so much love there. Worry, ruin, fear, insecurity. But love. They both knew it. It surfaced gently now, in the wake of the setting sun at night and as they fell asleep on blankets on the ground. Malcolm never made him feel guilty or incorrect or unwanted. Malcolm never made him feel like a burden. Malcolm never made him feel like he was broken.

Because Malcolm thought he was the sun by which all other beautiful things were lit. 

To Anders, Malcolm was a fire burning brightly. Too brightly sometimes, but fueling him forward. Steadfast in its fury and ever present. He was hot black coffee first thing in the morning and the thrill of running too fast over flat grassy plains and the way your stomach aches after you laughed too hard and the shiver of a hand running down your spine slowly and the crinkle of leather as it moves and whiskey lingering on the lips. 

To Malcolm, Anders was the feeling of lightness in his chest when magic pooled in his hands and when the wine kicked in and all was kind and easy and calm from its taste and sunlight pooling on a pillow in the morning and the comforting purr of a cat as he scratched and the sound sleep after a needed cry and cold water and hands in his hair and the way a beautiful song makes you want to dance in your kitchen. 

“You’re still with me, you don’t have to be,” Anders questioned, “Why?”

He wanted to know the answer, the one he asked in silence for seven years. The one that lingered in every glance and every touch and every avoidance. He watched the blood mage fall into so many arms but his and he knew why: because Anders would be the last to hold him and Malcolm wasn’t ready yet.  _ Was he now? _ The book of their lives, long in its short years and filled with a broken narrative, did they finally reach the chapter that Anders had wanted to read for so long? He needed to know. He wanted to read it over and over and over again until its pages were ragged from wear and ripped in places and the spine cracked and it was falling apart but  _ Maker _ , he would read it again. Until it was crumbling paper in his hands. Until ashes were all that remained. Until they were old and grey together. 

“Anders,” Malcolm said softly, compassion in his expression, adoration like there was on the day when the world offered scorn, “I should think that’s obvious.”

“It isn’t,” the healer replied, prodding him.

“Well,” Malcolm grinned, that usual smile that made Anders’ lungs feel like they were aching when he sucked in breath, “I abandoned my entire life in Kirkwall and fled into the wilderness with you as a fugitive from the most powerful organization in Thedas” he chuckled, “I would  _ hope  _ that is seen as a more overtly romantic gesture than a fruit basket.”

“Fruit basket,” Anders repeated. The reference was apparent to him. It was a joke they all made at his expense when he was so hopelessly lost inside Fenris. 

“I can be very clear, if you need me to be,” Malcolm said quietly.

“I want you to be,” the healer whispered. It was all he could manage.

“Alright,” Malcolm murmured, stepping toward him with confidence earned painfully, through heartbreak and burden and bloody noses and bad days. He reached a hand up and rested it on Anders’ cheek. It didn’t shake. It didn’t tremble. It was so sure. 

“I love you,” he murmured, an easy admission. It didn’t ache, it left his lips like they were meant to form around the words, “To the point of ruin, rebuild, ruin again,” he ran a thumb along his lips, his voice barely above a hush, “I thought that was also obvious.”

Anders swallowed, “How do you love me,” he prodded. He wanted every whisper of truth, he had waited so long to hear it and Malcolm was normally so loose with his tongue. Now was not the time for it to tighten in his mouth. Anders wanted to be greedy with Malcolm’s heart for a moment, it was an organ he knew the beat to so well, drumming under his healing hands in battle and the broken rhythm of love that lingered in ghosts.

And Malcolm would oblige because Anders deserved every word that sparked life. 

“Romantically,” Malcolm bit back a grin, “Not platonically, nor that odd plane of existence somewhere in the middle that we have been sitting in for years. You down my hallway, me clinging to sheets to give my hands something to hold so I didn’t reach for you before I was ready,” his gaze lingered on the healer’s features with warmth in their cold blue. Ocean eyes of a tempestuous man looking into sunlight that didn’t blind. “The kind of way where I’m not bothered sleeping on dirt floors or looking over my shoulder my entire fucking life if it means I do those things with you.” He pressed his forehead to Anders’ and breathed in the smell of elfroot and clean linen and tea leaves. “I want you, all of you, every part,  _ all of it _ ,” Malcolm smiled, lips barely able to form the words with how wide it was, “And there can be no pieces, there can be no compromise.”

Anders groaned, wrapping his arms around Malcolm’s waist and clasping them on the other side, encircling him fully, “I hate you.”

“ _ Mmm _ ,” Malcolm hummed, closing his eyes and nuzzling his forehead, “You love me.”

“You’re right,” Anders breathed, “I do.”

“Good, this works out well,” he teased, lips hovering above the healer’s, preventing their brush for a moment before he bridged the gap. It wasn’t a breathless kiss as much as it filled his lungs with life, sunlight and safety and the clean quiet of a crisp morning, dawn breaking over a hill and spilling its warmth onto vibrant green. Malcolm’s lips formed easily around his, Anders’ hands held his face gently, theirs was a love filled with calming white. Not red in its color or black in its depths but white, a page not yet written, a book they would never put down. 

And later, in the warm dark of a tavern room in a bed they made their own for the night, they would write the opening sentences of that story and Malcolm’s hands would shake penning words he used to know how to form well and Anders wouldn’t care. It wouldn’t matter. All that mattered was what the page contained, the way Malcolm held him so tightly, the way he breathed out  _ I love you _ with every gasp, the way he covered Anders in contact and refused to allow even an inch of his skin unknown, a book never familiar no matter how many times he read it. The love Anders wanted. The love Malcolm needed. The light that would never burn out. 


End file.
